Secret Lolita: The Confessions of Victor X (11 page)

"Look," she went on, "right now, talking about it to you, I can feel I am sexually aroused." Then she put her hand up her skirt, pulled it back and showed me that her fingers were wet. "You too," she continued, "must suffer from your unnatural life." (She thought that I led a life of chastity.) She asked me if I masturbated and when I said I did not, told me that abstinence could do me a lot of harm and drive me mad. "That's why you look so ill," she said, "so sickly." Finally she suggested we start a sexual relationship which ought in Nadya's opinion to do her health and mine a lot of good. "I'm remaining morally faithful," said the girl, "to my fiancé, I'm not leaving him and I'll follow him to Siberia, but for the time being hygiene demands that I satisfy my physical needs and my future husband has every interest in his wife's well-being. And as for you it will get your health back and will save you from resorting to prostitutes." Of course I accepted these propositions: I could not have wished for better, even though my reasons were anything but hygienic.

Nadya asked me to draw the curtains and turn my back on her for a little. When she let me turn around she was in bed and had inserted a contraceptive sponge into her vagina as the English author prescribed. Then I undressed, joined Nadya in bed and that is how we began our 'hygienic' pastime.

Nadya was rather nice to look at: ash blond hair, expressive grey eyes, rather well-formed features except for her lips which were too thick. She was well proportioned, of medium height and very big buttocks and thighs. On the other hand her breasts were small, her sexual organs were fresh and pretty, only moderately hairy and her vagina was tight. I had never had sexual intercourse with any woman so sensual as Nadya or one who gave me so much physical pleasure. She quickly and easily came to a climax and it went on for a long time: her venereal spasms came back at short intervals and were of great intensity. She threw herself about all over the place during coitus, she sighed, moaned, groaned, shouted out incoherently, her limbs convulsed and stiffened cataleptically, her vulva contracted violently and in such a way that it hurt my penis even at the paroxysm of orgasm: then her face took on a death-agony expression and was clouded over with frightening lividness. Sometimes the paroxysm of sexual pleasure would end in a hysterical nervous outburst which terrified me at first but which quickly went away. She would laugh hysterically, would cry and fight &c. Nadya's sexual secretions were very copious, they dripped onto the bedclothes and made big stains; you could feel at a touch that her clitoris, labia majora and other sexual parts were erect, just as you could feel the heat that built up in her congested vulva: all its tissues dilated and reddened. Her whole abdomen shook convulsively. Nadya was no expert in erotic matters: she knew only about normal coitus in the usual position. I put my experience and reading to good use and taught her all sorts of refinements. I showed her French kissing (
in more columbarum
) and cunnilingus which she liked a lot and which she finally preferred to coitus. I would arose her by manipulating her breasts, her clitoris, anus and vagina. We tried out all the conceivable coital postures: coitus from behind, or
more ferino
- the
cheletizein
of the Greeks - coitus standing up, in fact all the
figurae Veneris
which we could invent or which I knew of from books or obscene pictures. We had intercourse on the furniture (chairs, settees, even on a table as we had read in
Pot-bouille
) and on the floor, on rugs and cushions. One day she hung the top of her body out of the window overlooking the street, leaving the rest of her body behind the drawn curtains, while I had intercourse with her from behind,
more ferino
. When we met we would first of all usually read some lewd work such as Boccaccio's tales or French naturalist works; once we were warmed up enough by reading, we would get undressed and make love. Guided by books I decided to try out coitus
inter mammas
(between the breasts) and
irrumatio
(penis-breast contact) on Nadya; while I was working over her sexual organs with my tongue and mouth, she would take my penis in her mouth and carry out fellatio. When she found out from me that women could insert all sorts of objects into their vaginas, she asked me to masturbate her by putting candles, keys, pencils, bars of sealing wax &c. up her. I told her that tickling a woman's urethral orifice was supposed to be especially pleasurable (so I had read); accordingly she let me arouse her urethra with an assortment of tapered objects, e.g. a horn hairpin. She was just as ignorant of pederasty: I explained to her how intercourse between males took place. When I told her there were some women who enjoyed having a penis inserted in the anus she became so taken by the idea that she asked me whether I could try out
paedicatio
(buggery) on her. I acquiesced, but had a great deal of difficulty, after several fruitless attempts, in consummating the act, Nadya liked this form of copulation, although doing it hurt her at first. Afterwards we took up
paedicatio
quite often. Nadya said that it was not as good as vaginal intercourse but that it was 'nice for a change'. As for homosexual intercourse she told me that once she happened to be sleeping not in the same bed but in the same room as a young lady who was the daughter of a rich Moscow businessman and that this young lady slipped into Nadya's bed, grabbed hold of her sexual organs and tried to lie on her in coital position. Nadya could not make out what it was all about and indignantly threw her out of the bed, despite the young Muscovite's pleas that in her town all the girls of her class did what Nadya did not want done to her. Despite these explanations, Nadya thought that the Moscow girl was mad and I was the first to tell her that homosexual relations were really rather common in certain strata of society. A few years later, judging by what I was told, Nadya herself went in for these practices.

The reason I taught my bed companion various erotic refinements was not just because I was sensual, but also because I was reduced to satisfying her by various forms of masturbation, since I was no longer strong enough to satisfy her with intercourse. Nadya really had a very big sexual appetite which was far more than I could cope with. We had intercourse several times at night; sometimes she used to wake me up in the night or at daybreak to have intercourse again. When I felt too worn out, I satisfied her by various manoeuvres, especially cunnilingus which she particularly liked. None of these exertions did any harm to her health, I believe, but mine was shattered by them. What worried me more than anything else was my weakening memory: the weakening might have just been apparent because I was anyway less and less interested in books and was getting incapable of fixing my attention on anything that needed study.

Nadya and I had frequent encounters; I spent most nights in her bed and only came home in the morning, sometimes just to fetch the books I was taking to school. My father could not help knowing that I was leading a disorderly life, but he stuck to his opinions which forbad interference with a young man's behaviour; moreover he was very much taken up with his financial affairs at that time and they were in a bad state.

One night in bed with Nadya I remember hearing through the wall the noise made by someone's terrible hiccups, with hysterical touches and almost with yells. Nadya explained what the servants had told her: that these really monstrous hiccup attacks came over the Polish woman in the next room each time she had intercourse with her husband. The attacks lasted more than half an hour each. Fortunately for us the young Polish woman soon moved out. I have mentioned that Nadya herself sometimes had a hysterical attack after coitus, or a cunnilingus session, if it was particularly voluptuous, but that only happened from time to time.

My liaison with Nadya lasted about twelve months. After her fiancé's trial and sentence she married him and followed him to Siberia. He had been sentenced to eight years' exile, but after a number of remissions he stayed only three and a half years in Siberia, where in any case he had lived as a free man in quite a pleasant town. After that he came back to Russia, but without Nadya who had left him after a few months of marriage and had long before returned to Kiev with a lover. After that she had a lot of adventures which had none of them anything to do with politics.

I was very strongly attached to Nadya but by sheer physical passion. The proof is that when she had to leave me I was much grieved because that meant I was losing a source of great thrills, but I felt no jealousy at her marriage. As for her feelings for me, she told me just that she found me 'likeable'. As soon as she had gone I had other little love affairs of the same kind, that is purely sensual with 'honourable intentions'.

As I said, I left grammar school for good at nineteen and a half because of my scholastic failures. I must add another reason - my wretched state of health. I had no future before me, I did not know if I should ever be in a fit state to earn a living. My father was much saddened by it and could not find the right attitude to take. I might have begun a career in the army, but my health was not good enough and in any case it was repugnant to me at that time. And those who have not completed their secondary education find the doors of all other 'decent' careers in Russia closed to them. A lucky chance gave me a way out. At that very moment an uncle whom we had not seen for years came to Kiev and told my father that he was willing to take me to Italy and bring me into his business.

I accepted the offer joyfully. Any opportunity to get about, to travel was welcome in my melancholy state, and I was happy to leave my normal surroundings where I was undergoing the humiliation of feeling a failure. And what young man's imagination would not respond to the very name of Italy and its magical power? I dreamt of the renowned beauty of Italian women, of innumerable occasions for easy love affairs that I thought I would find in the land of sensual pleasure. So the arrangement suited everyone and I left for Milan with my uncle. I was then twenty exactly.

We were a little disappointed by the weather: we got to Milan during a cold snap with snow and quite severe sub-zero temperatures. But we were assured that this would not last. On the advice we were given we moved to the shores of Lake Como where winter was like spring. We often left for Milan from our hotel - it took ten minutes on the steamboat and an hour on the train. My uncle introduced me to his commercial agents, asked them to help me with advice and, acting on their advice, he placed me with an Italian family for board and lodging and left for Russia again. Thanks to my uncle and the industrialists he had got to know - he did not know Italian but talked to them in French which is very widely understood in Milan - I was allowed to go to workshops, to take courses in silk manufacture &c. I began studying Italian with real pleasure.

From the moment I left Kiev I lived a life of abstinence. I still felt erotic urges but, unlike what I expected, I could find no way of satisfying them. I lived with an Italian civil servant's family: the wife was of French origin, a jaundiced dried-up person completely void of sexual appeal as far as I was concerned and who was in any case serious and entirely wrapped up in caring for her household and her children. She had a boy and two little girls, the elder being twelve. So no amorous experiences were likely where I was living. I soon got to know several Italian families, but quickly realised that I had nothing to hope for in that quarter either. Generally, young girls are not so free to move about in Italy as in Russia; they only go out in their mother's company and never entertain gentlemen alone… I could pursue a girl only if I had 'honourable intentions', that is as a recognised fiancé. True, I could have tried to seduce the little girl secretly, but that was very hard from a practical point of view and moreover would have been something very grave, quite unlike illicit relationships in Russia. I began to understand what Italian morals were like and such a course of action became morally repugnant to me. I could see that in this country to get a girl to have extramarital sex really meant 'ruining' or 'dishonouring' her, which was not at all like Russia where morals are so liberal under despotic rule.

As for the few married women I got to know, some were too old and did not attract me, others were too closely watched by their husbands and others did not look as if they would give my shy advances any encouragement. "And people say that the Italians are so passionate!" I said to myself with astonishment. Because Italian families are comparatively closed and because of husbands' despotic authority and the fear of gossiping neighbours, it is not easy to find opportunities for a
tête-à-tête
with Italian women of the middle bourgeosie. In that setting adultery needs a certain amount of boldness and skill on the lover's part and, in every case, he has to play an active, aggressive role. But I was shy with women and was no longer young enough to make them think they were 'enlightening' me sexually. In a nutshell, I could not find the smallest chance of breaking the sixth [sic] commandment with the Milanese ladies I knew - and there were not many of those either. These things were always easy in novels and stories, not always in reality.

I did not give prostitutes a thought, since I was afraid of venereal infection. As for working class girls, I felt that those who were corrupted were as dangerous to health as prostitutes and my moral feelings would not have allowed me to corrupt an innocent girl myself, even if I had felt like going through with all the more or less trying aftermath it might entail: the victim's despair, her parents' righteous protests &c. I would not have done anything bad for all the tea in China and, anyway, I was sure that any girl I could possess without doing wrong might be contaminated. What I was told about the corruption of the working classes could only make me hesitate more. The underlings in Milan's theatrical world - and there were many of them - chorus girls, dancers, café singers - were, as I knew, just prostitutes under another name and this was the area where venereal disease was most widespread. I might have tried to get myself a chic mistress, a 'kept woman' if my means had allowed, but my budget made it quite out of the question to take this way out.